Acclaimed singer-songwriter John Prine dies of coronavirus at age 73
John Prine performs at John Anson Ford Amphitheatre on Oct. 1, 2019 in Hollywood.(Rich Fury/Getty Images)
Singer-songwriter John Prine, the laconic Midwesterner with a deft lyrical touch and a legion of high-profile fans from Bob Dylan to Bonnie Raitt to Bruce Springsteen, died Tuesday after contracting coronavirus last month. He was 73.
His family confirmed his death to Rolling Stone.
Prine, who had survived two previous bouts with cancer, was hospitalized March 26 — with his condition quickly deteriorating to critical. He was placed on a ventilator, and then diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs before his death.
The Grammy Award winner was hardly a chart-topper with his signature brand of storytelling against a changing musical backdrop: Mostly folk and country, but with forays into rock, R&B and rockabilly across a half-century of recording. His admirers crossed all musical boundaries, with a genre-spanning gamut of boldfaced names covering his songs: Johnny Cash, Bette Milder, Emmylou Harris, Paul Westerberg, John Fogerty, Jeff Tweedy.
In this June 20, 2017, photo, John Prine poses in his offices in Nashville, Tenn. (Mark Humphrey/AP)
“The Mark Twain of American Songwriting,” gushed the headline on a 2017 profile in Rolling Stone magazine.
Midler and Joan Baez both did versions of his song “Hello in There." Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery” became a staple of Raitt’s live sets, and Dylan was effusive in his praise of the Army veteran-turned-mailman turned-singer/songwriter.
“Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism,” said Dylan, invoking the French writer Marcel Proust in a 2009 interview. “Midwestern mind trips to the nth degree.”
The son of blue-collar Maywood, Ill., learned to play the guitar from his older brother while following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who performed with country & western star Merle Travis. He spent two years in the Army before returning to his job at the U.S. Post Office, writing songs while walking his route.
His first live performance at a Chicago club’s open-mic night in 1969 included his song “Sam Stone,” the story of a morphine-addicted Vietnam veteran with a couplet that left the crowd mute: “There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes/Jesus Christ died for nothin', I suppose.”
This June 15, 2019 file photo shows John Prine performing at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn. (Amy Harris/Amy Harris/Invision/AP)
If the audience didn’t know what to make of Prine, musicians instantly recognized his brilliance. Kris Kristofferson helped Prine land a contract to record his eponymous debut album in 1971. While the release was no commercial success, the song “Paradise” was eventually covered by artists as disparate as John Denver and Dwight Yoakam.
His famous fans couldn’t spare Prine from losing his recording contract with Asylum Records after his 1980 album “Storm Windows," leading the artist to launch his own label Oh Boy Records. The rare show of independence by a recording artist of the era was supported by Prine’s loyal legion of lesser-known fans, who mailed along enough checks to cover the cost of his next record.
Musician John Prine on stage, circa 1970-1975. (Tony Russell/Getty Images)
His best-selling album, 1991′s Grammy-winning “The Missing Years,” featured guest spots from Springsteen, Raitt and Tom Petty, with 250,000 copies sold. One year later, Prine made his film debut in “Falling From Grace,” a movie directed by longtime admirer John Mellencamp.
In 1998, Prine was working on a country album of duets with female singers when he was diagnosed with cancer that required surgery to remove a piece of his neck. Prine once recounted how his surgeon began telling him in great detail about creating a special plastic shield to shield the singer’s vocal cords during the operation.
“I finally said, ‘Have you ever heard me sing?’” the self-deprecating singer told the doctor. The surgery left Prine’s head permanently slumped, but he finished the album the next year. He survived a second bout with cancer in his lung 15 years later.
Prine continuing to work through the 2018 release of “The Tree of Forgiveness” — his first album of original songs since 2005, featuring a new generation of acolytes including Jason Isbell and Brandi Carlile. The release actually hit No. 5 on the Billboard album charts.
He was in the middle of a tour when he returned home in February for hip surgery, but was scheduled to get back on the road at the end of April — with a June appearance set for the Apollo Theater.
Prine was survived by his wife Fiona and their three sons.
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